Justin Bieber Recorded Vocals For Kanye West's "Ultralight Beam"

According to Fonzworth Bentley, there’s a freestyled Bieber a capella that didn’t make the cut.

Whenever new Kanye West music is released, there’s always a fair bit of mystery of how the songs all came together, especially when the writing credits often shed light on surprising collaborators.

Really, the only people who can piece any of the process together are those who saw it first hand. Luckily, there are a lot of witnesses, and a couple have come forward with intel already, including Chance The Rapper, and nowFonzworth Bentley.

Like Chance, Fonzworth has shared some details of the making of The Life Of Pablo’s opening track, Ultralight Beam, revealing that it began with a series of freestyles that he later arranged. While that’s not altogether, surprising, one piece of new information was the involvement of Justin Bieber in the early stages.

Speaking with FADER, Fonzworth revealed that he called fellow Atlanta songwriter Poo Bear for some advice, and Justin (with whom Poo Bear collaborates frequently) was around at the time, which resulted in Biebs coming through the studio, and participating in a spontaneous vocal session,

“In his freestyle he said, “This is an ultralight beam,” Fonzworth said of Kanye, who started the cypher of sorts. “He sings that and was singing the melody. Then Chance catches the vibe. A lot of what ended up in his verse was from this freestyle—as far as his patterns and some of the words. There weren’t that many words, more so vibes and patterns. Then Justin got on the mic and sang some a capella. It was free flow. It was creativity.”

Unfortunately, we didn’t hear any Bieber on the final product, but thanks to Bentley, Kirk Franklin and Kelly Price were brought into the mix, becoming essential parts of the song.

Read the full piece here. Would you have liked to hear Justin Bieber’s contribution make the cut, or is the song perfect as it is?